New CFI Table Arrays the Sources of Candidates’ Early Money

This release was updated on August 28th to add additional Super PAC contributions not included in the original.

We all know by now that the presidential campaigns raised early money from mega-donors at an unprecedented clip, with most of the money during the first half of 2015 going into legally independent Super PACs.
The Campaign Finance Institute today released a table that makes it easier to quantify what has been happening.
In the table, candidates and Super PAC receipts are combined, as are each donor’s contributions across the committees.

From the table, we can see (in the lower right corner) that only 59 donors (individuals and organizations) gave $1 million or more, but they were responsible for 34% of all of the money. More than half of the money came from 477 donors who gave $100,000 or more.

Five candidates and their Super PACs received more than half of their money from million dollar donors: Rick Perry (80%), Ted Cruz (71%), Scott Walker1 (63%), Mike Huckabee (54%), and Marco Rubio (51%). Donald Trump’s campaign has been mostly self-financed.

Boosted by a strong second quarter of fundraising through her campaign committee, Hillary Clinton’s support was weighted toward traditional campaign donors who max out at $2,700 for the primary. Donors to her campaign committee accounted for over 70% of her combined total.

At the small donor end of the spectrum, Bernie Sanders, received 77% of his money from donors who gave $200 or less. Ben Carson received 65%. Super PACs supporting Carson were unique among all Super PACs in that the $3.4 million raised from donors who gave $200 or less was nearly eight times what all other Super PACs combined raised from small donors.

1Scott Walker did not officially announce his campaign until July, as such his campaign committee did not file a June 30 report. His amounts reflect Super PAC dollars only.

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PRACTICAL AND OBJECTIVE RESEARCH FOR DEMOCRACY

The Campaign Finance Institute is the nation’s pre-eminent think tank for objective, non-partisan research on money in politics in U.S. federal and state elections. CFI’s original work is published in scholarly journals as well as in forms regularly used by the media and policy making community. Statements made in its reports do not necessarily reflect the views of CFI's Trustees or financial supporters.